Crossing Cultural Boundaries Can Be Romantic -- There's Romance In Foreignness

------------------------------- "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri Mariner, $12

"The Wedding Jester" by Steve Stern Graywolf, $14 -------------------------------

Who are you? Are you where you live or where you've been? Two new story collections,"Interpreters of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri and "The Wedding Jester" by Steve Stern, take up the problems inherent in translating our personal cultural experience from one world to another.

For Jhumpa Lahiri, born in London and raised in New England, the idea of belonging somewhere is a complex web of associations of birthplace, education and religion. Several of her stories in this debut volume, notably "Mrs. Sen," and "When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine," are about the pain of separation from family or the loss of a rich sensual life - the foods, the smells, the voices of an Indian homeland. In "Sexy," Lahiri gently twists this idea around by having the loneliness come from the opposite direction - not being Indian. Miranda, the main character, is intrigued by her married lover's Indian heritage, yet it is precisely on account of her whiteness that she is only a Sunday mistress.

Another theme of Lahiri's, and it couldn't be more timely, is how cultures misread each other's intentions; how they can translate their mutual foreignness into a kind of romance. In the title story, Mr. Kapasi, a middle-aged Indian man, guides a New Jersey Indian family to religious landmarks. During the course of the day trip he

falls into pleasant conversation with the American wife, Mrs. Das. She asks for his address so she can send him copies of the pictures they have been taking:

"The paper curled as Mr. Kapasi wrote his address in clear, careful letters. She would write to him, asking about his day interpreting at the doctor's office, and he would respond eloquently, choosing only the most entertaining anecdotes, ones that would make her laugh out loud as she read them in her house in New Jersey. In time she would reveal the disappointments of her marriage, and he his. In this way their friendship would grow, and flourish."

How Lahiri uses this image later on is as knowing and piercing as an exit line from Raymond Carver.

Each story in "Interpreter of Maladies" is delicate and sharp, like a needle drawn through silk. Whether her scene is a New England university town or the raucous back streets of Calcutta, Lahiri shows how boundaries, real and imagined, form and deform character.

Steve Stern treats boundaries quite differently. His exuberant prose is tied to no place, time or logic. In "The Wedding Jester," his eighth book, rabbis fly, women step out of mirrors, and a night of rapturous love-making can land you in heaven, bed and all.

Listen to this. It's from the title story. In the middle of a Jewish wedding the bride has been possessed by the spirit of a third rate borscht-belt comic:

"The doorbell rings at a nafkeh byiss," continued the bride who was not herself: her body rigid, a helix of hair dangling over one eye. "You know nafkeh byiss, dear? A whoorhouse. So the madame answers and finds there a poor soul with no arms or legs. `What do you think you can do here?' she asks him. The cripple says, `I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

Many of Stern's characters are stuck between worlds. In a Steve Stern universe, even angels can lose their way, and heaven, we find out, is less interesting than earth, but the furniture is nicer.

These nine stories show how a talented writer can draw from his own rich tradition of Jewish folklore and make comedies of transformation that are contemporary, painful, passionate, and most of all, very funny. They are like backyard fireworks: they fizz, and pop, and explode in surprising and beautiful ways.